This attack on press freedom extends throughout Latin America despite the shift from despotic dictatorships to civilian democracies. The most obvious cases are Venezuela and Ecuador. It also also been seen periodically in Argentina.

For a good while Chile seemed like a beacon of freedom. However, in the latest press freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Chile fell 47 places to 80th position.

One key problem is the lack of diversity. Two newspaper publishers own 95% of the country's newspapers. It is one of the most concentrated presses in the continent, says RSF's Benoît Hervieu. "There is a conflict of interest in Chile - media owners are also landowners and industry owners."

And two large newspapers, El Mercurio and Copesa, also receive £3.2m every year in government subsidies, creating another conflict of interest, between the press and the government.

This did not seem to matter until Chile was beset with a series of protests, including an objection to the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Patagonia, an attempt to reform the education system, and more recently complaints about poverty in Chile's most peripheral regions.

Then the government began to take a more active stance in cracking down on both the protests themselves and journalists trying to report on them.

Abuses against the press began during August last year during student protests. They have continued sporadically ever since.